


Because It's You I See

by myracingthoughts



Series: Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Childhood Friends, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Angst, Home for Christmas, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28389627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myracingthoughts/pseuds/myracingthoughts
Summary: Darcy Lewis heads home for the holidays for the first time in years. And somehow, some way, Clint Barton, childhood friend and current annoyance, manages weasel his way back into her life at every turn.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis
Series: Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035525
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	Because It's You I See

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fulfills the 'Main character is keeping a secret that could ruin everything' [Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo](https://pasmonblog.tumblr.com/post/634579786258432002) square.
> 
> So, uh, this was supposed to be a multi-chapter fic, but since I didn’t start writing until like two weeks ago, and Christmas has passed, it’s now a one-shot. Blame @[treaddelicately](https://archiveofourown.org/users/treaddelicately) and our Hallmark movie marathon for this one- specifically 'Love In Winterland,' if you're looking for a rec (and some feels). Enjoy!

“Mom, I’ll be there in eight hours.”

Darcy paced around her Manhattan bachelor apartment, having gotten in a little late from work. It figured the trains would decide to break down on _two_ lines the day she was leaving for home. As if it wasn’t bad enough she’d have to work overtime on Christmas Eve. It was like the universe was trying to give her an out.

But it wasn’t like she needed more excuses not to go back.

“Yes, mom. I’ve eaten, I promise.”

Darcy had to hold back the eye-roll as her mom went down her worry list— she was on video chat, after all. Everything from not packing enough socks to not starving herself, whether she’d eaten a vegetable lately and even if she realized just how long the drive home was going to be because _god forbid_ Darcy miss the family breakfast on Christmas Day.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I understand that you don’t want me to miss breakfast—” 

As if Darcy hadn’t done this drive at least three times before. “ _But never during the winter!_ ” her mom insisted when she tried to say as much. But god, if she had to go through one more of these awkward phone calls, the ones that felt much too one-sided for her to still be making them several times a week, she might just relocate to another continent permanently.

“Yes, I’ll drive through and night and see you before sunrise— 

No, she could leave her parents alone for the holidays again. It was bad enough last year when she was stuck on a research assignment in the middle of South America. Dr. Jane Foster wasn’t too concerned with statutory holidays. She was ‘think first, feel later’— the exact opposite of the almost too accommodating Darcy Lewis.

“ _Yes, mom_ I’ll remember not to track snow into the house and leave my boots in the mudroom.”

“Oh, and Darcy,” her mother started on the other end.

Darcy was holding her breath, waiting for the guilt trip for missing Christmas Eve, but her mom had other ideas.

“Guess who’s here?”

Her mom swung her phone over to her right, a familiar mop of blond hair peeking out from between the fridge doors.

Darcy almost screeched, “Is that Clint?”

He awkwardly waved over video chat, mouth full of Christmas tree-shaped cookies (sans-frosting, which in itself was sacrilegious).

“There better still be some of those left for me when I get there, Barton. _Wait_ , mom, why is Clint over?”

“Oh, well, we had that leaky sink—”

“—and the water damage on the ceiling—”

“—and the gutters needed a cleaning, so.”

It was no secret that her mother’s house had seen better days. Passed down through the family from her great-grandmother to her parents and now to her, it’d seen its fair share of renovations and haphazard additions. The dozens of projects endured over the years had left a few cracks in the foundation (some quite literally).

But the real question is why _Barton_ decided to be her mother’s personal handyman. He owned his own business, had his own issues to deal with. 

Why did it feel like he was trying to weasel his way back into her life?

“And Clint had nothing better to do?”

The camera seemed to swing off to the side, changing hands as Clint’s face too up more of her phone’s screen. Her heart skipped a beat— not so much from the shock of her behind-the-back sass turned very face-to-face. No, that wasn’t it.

But she couldn’t quite pinpoint why that chiselled jaw, that mess of blonde hair, and that scruff that was a few days past needing a trim made her stomach twist into knots hundreds of miles away.

“I’ll have you know I’ve been an excellent neighbour. Because that’s what we do in small towns, Darcy, in case you forgot with your big-city living…” Clint gruffed with a smirk-turned-smile. “We help people out.”

Darcy tried to ignore the fact that her mouth was having a hard time forming words, a little too dry, as she stared at him through her phone.

“My heart ain’t exactly bleeding for you, Barton. Looks like you’re being paid handsomely,” Darcy shot back with raised brows.

“Just for that, I’m not leaving you any,” he huffed, handing the phone back to her mother.

“Feels like I just stepped into a time machine for a second,” Darcy’s mom mused as she took back the phone.

“My waistline wishes that were possible,” Darcy snorted, ignoring her mother’s wistful tone. “Anyway, mom. I should really get on the road so I can see you without the aid of technology.”

“Alright, drive safe!”

The screen went black as Darcy wondered whether she’d just heard Clint echo her mother’s sentiments in the background of the call.

But it was probably just the static.

* * *

The ride back home was six hours, though it always seemed longer with her alone in the car. The radio could only keep her occupied and singing along for the first two hours, and by hour four, she was already catching herself and her thoughts drifting away with her in the night.

Coffee. Coffee was necessary and useful and a vital part of any good road trip— some bad ones, too. But considering it was four in the morning, and Darcy wasn’t itching to hearing the lecture her mother had probably prepared for her arrival, she desperately needed a cup.

The neon sign seemed to glow like a beacon in the night. Right off the city’s main stretch of road, nestled in the sleepy streets that looked like they walked out of some charming Hallmark movie. This place was probably the only one she’d feel nostalgic for. The images seemed to flash before her eyes, those late nights nestled in a vinyl-coated booth, hyped up on too many mugfuls of coffee as she tried to walk Clint through his homework.

Even the jingle of the overhead bell seemed to transport her back to something she couldn’t quite—

“Darcy?”

Her head whipped around at the sound, catching the red hair she’d know anywhere.

“Nat!”

Darcy closed the gap between them, flinging her arms around her friend. 

She pulled to examine her, seeing the tired bags and smudged eyeliner around her green eyes that could only mean Natasha was pulling a few too many night shifts. That and the fact she was holding a pen in her hands, with another nestled just behind her ear, long forgotten, probably hours ago, by now. 

Pulling it out from behind her ear to show her elicited a blush and an awkward chuckle.

“Sorry, it’s been a long night,” Natasha sighed, looking nervously at the only patron in the back corner. “What the hell are you doing up this early? I thought you weren’t due back until this afternoon.”

“Change of plans,” Darcy said simply, more than happy to leave it at that.

“Your mom?” Darcy nodded as Natasha hummed, “That tracks. How have you been?”

“Oh, you know. Work is nuts, but what’s new?”

“Not a whole lot in this part of town,” Natasha said. “Although I did hear a tasty bit of gossip that you had a little chat with your favourite childhood friend last night.”

Darcy wasn’t about to tell her she wasn’t wrong in her assessment, swallowing the nervous chuckle before adding, “ _Friend_ is generous. These days it’s probably closer to acquaintance or distant memory. Did you hear that from my mom or Barton?”

Natasha looked a little smug at that question.

“Is that the question you really want to ask, Lewis?” she shot back with a teasing grin. 

“How about ‘why is Barton trying to worm his way back into my family?’”

The smile slipped off of Natasha’s face for a second, “You didn’t know?”

Eyes narrowing, stomach dropping, Darcy shook her head.

“Well, he’s the only one left in his now,” Natasha explained, voice dipping down. “Barney passed about six months ago, now.”

Darcy was locked in her tracks, world swimming around her. Barney had been the only reason Clint hadn’t ended up in the foster system again when their parents died. Took him in and raised him. He wasn’t the most attentive adult figure, but he made sure he had enough to eat, a place to stay.

“Shit,” Darcy whispered, feeling like an asshole at her accusation.

Natasha still looked confused, “Figured he would have called you, or you would have kept tabs on him.”

“Why? It’s not like he ever reached out to me once I left.”

And that was the truth. Darcy hadn’t heard a single word from the boy she’d known as a friend— she’d say even a best friend— all four years of high school. Never understood why, but always assumed he’d moved on from that part of his life. Maybe he was embarrassed by her, not wanting to associate with people who wanted nothing to do with these small-town roots that had dug their claws into him.

But something told Darcy that the reason Natasha gaped back at her was something else entirely. She was looking at Darcy like she’d put something together. Like something suddenly made sense. 

“You seriously never pined for the guy? The whole stretch of high school?”

“Ew, no,” Darcy scoffed. “We were always more… like best friends.”

The words hung in the air, hollow and scripted— not that she wanted to dwell on that feeling much longer.

“Whatever you say, Darce,” Natasha said, focussing on the table she was wiping down and forgetting to hide the smirk on her face. “You in town long?”

“Until New Years, maybe,” Darcy said, sounding the most unsure she had all evening. 

The truth was, work could call and pull her out as soon as a day from now. _Dr._ Foster didn’t exactly _do_ holidays— she was more focussed on progress. And as soon as she figured out the last part of her current dilemma (something involving Amazonian frog mutations), Darcy would be expected to hop on the next flight down south to do the last of the manual labour.

Not that Jane had asked.

“Well, you look dead on your feet, friend. Take a booth, and I’ll bring over your favourites.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Darcy offered graciously, picking out the table in the far corner, away from the windows and the prying eyes of whoever was in the kitchen. “Not too much, though. Don’t want to ruin my appetite for mom’s previous Christmas morning breakfast.”

She was sure she looked like a wreck, all bleary-eyed and mussed from hours on the road. It was nice to sit down in something that wasn’t a driver’s seat for a little bit. Just a couple of hours, she told herself, and she’d be back on the road as soon as the sun was up.

Darcy sighed, slumping down into the closest booth, exhausted.

* * *

“Darcy?”

The warbled voice seemed to come from somewhere off in the distance, just familiar enough for her ears to pick it up at all, but she couldn’t quite place it…

Was she hearing things again? 

Or maybe this was just an incredibly vivid dream. The type where you couldn’t remember the faces when you awoke but somehow knew exactly who they were about? She hadn’t had a lot of those since her move to the city— something about the honks and voices rising up from the streets made it hard to get a good night’s sleep. And then she had that long car ride—

Wait. Darcy didn’t remember getting home to her parents’ place. And this didn’t feel like a bed…

Her head snapped up from the diner table, drool mark firmly on the sleeve of her wool jacket as she surveyed the scene. Sun was up, a few patrons at the window were staring. She hadn’t even managed to get her coat off, still just as bundled as she was when she first walked in.

She didn’t even get her coffee, she realized, staring at the empty tabletop. 

Which is when Darcy realized she wasn’t alone in the booth. Clint Barton was sitting across from her, peering over the corner of his newspaper at her, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here? And what _time_ is it?”

The panicked thoughts bubbled to the surface as she scrambled for her phone, deflating slightly when she realized it was still seven in the morning— at least she still had another hour before family breakfast.

Clint only smiled, folding the paper down so he could get a better look at her.

“A little spider might have told me you passed out in our booth.”

“It’s not _our_ booth,” Darcy shot back before she’d processed what he meant.

Yes, maybe she had gravitated towards the table they used to occupy almost exclusively all through high school. Maybe she did it without a second thought. But, she’d been sleep-deprived and tired and sore and… Damn it, she didn’t need to explain this to the smug-faced Clint sitting across from her, watching her brain whir into sleep-addled action.

He snorted, “Sure, Darce.”

“Don’t call me that,” Darcy chastised, eyes narrowing in exasperation. “It’s Darcy ‘ _almost doctor_ ’ Lewis.”

Flipping the newspaper open again, she could see he was just reading the comics. Typical.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I care,” he murmured. “Anyway, I kind of own the place, so I probably would have seen you in here eventually.”

Darcy groaned, “Oh god. Are you going to write me up for loitering too?”

“Mm, that’s the grumpy Darcy I remember,” he chuckled before looking over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “Nat, do you mind bringing over two cups of coffee?”

“Yes, actually,” she shot back, hands full with two tables’ worth of orders. “You know where the coffee is, Clint. Get it yourself.”

Darcy giggled from her spot in the booth, eyes alight at the look on Clint’s face. It was almost worth the embarrassment of waking up in her childhood friends’ diner for that exchange alone. The high and mighty small-town business owner being taken down a peg by the woman who’d known him since they were both in diapers.

Maybe her little town did have some charm after all.

Clint begrudgingly slipped out from the booth, pouring two mugs full of coffee while glaring at Natasha, who was piling plates onto another customer’s table. He slid both steaming mugs between them before settling down again.

Their hands brushed as she reached for the sugar, and Darcy pulled hers back as if it had burned.

“Sorry,” she said automatically, ignoring the jolt that shot up her arm at the contact.

“Still a cream and sugar girl, huh?”

It wasn’t an accusatory tone or as teasing as it had been earlier. Those blues eyes were a little softer now as he took her in.

Darcy couldn’t help but smile back, “Always.”

The clink of her spoon against the ceramic was the only thing she could hear as she tried to piece together some sort of less-than-awkward conversation starter for the man she’d known since grade school but hadn’t talked to in years. Not really. Not past the occasional birthday text, sometimes Christmas and New Years’, but they weren’t exactly on more-than-ten-word texts or Facetiming terms.

“How have things been around here?” Darcy asked finally, catching Nat’s eye as she smirked behind the counter.

Darcy was pretty sure she hadn’t seen that look on her face since high school.

“Well, ever since you went off to your _big city_ job,” Darcy could hear the bitter tone a mile away, “it’s been pretty quiet here. How’s the city?”

“Good,” Darcy said automatically. And before Clint could get too into a line of questioning, Darcy brought her coffee mug to her lips, adding a quick, “Busy” to appease him.

“Descriptive,” he chuckled. “But I guess most of what you do wouldn’t make much sense to little ol’ me, huh? Big science hotshot in some corporate lab in the city.”

Darcy laughed into her coffee, probably not for the reasons Clint assumed. Sure, she was working on her Ph.D., and yes, some of that involved science, but she was probably the Clint of her lab— nowhere near the level of the multi-degreed eggheads who led the bulk of the experiments.

Not that she would have told him that. Darcy was happy to let him think she was some genius far away from here, living her best life and not still scrounging for spare change to do her laundry every (other) week.

Clint was surprisingly— if not blissfully— quiet for the next few minutes, alternating between checking his phone and perusing the paper. She wasn’t sure why he stuck around with her. Surely, being the owner of this place, he had better things to do, right?

But by the time she drained her mug, leaving a few bills on the table— even though Nat never would have brought a bill over, never mind expected her to pay for a meal here— he looked at her expectantly.

“Ready to get to your mom’s? I’ll walk you out.”

Darcy nodded, bundling herself up again and grabbing her purse as he walked her to the door, holding it open for her as a gust of ice-cold air shot through her bones. Scuffing her toe on the sidewalk, she smiled at him.

“Well, I guess maybe I’ll see you around?” Darcy said, sounding about as unsure as she felt.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Clint stood at the door as she got into her car, feeling a little flustered as she checked her mirrors. Why was he so intent to see her off? She was a grown woman who could drive her car. So once she put the key into the ignition, she thought it’d be the end of it.

Until the only sounds she heard were _click, click_ , and silence at the turn.

“No,” Darcy moaned, trying again, but the engine just wouldn’t rollover. She beat her fists against the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn in the process. Leaning her head against the wheel, she wished the earth would just swallow her whole.

It was a gentle knock at her window that made her finally look over at a sympathetic looking Barton.

“I think my battery’s dead,” Darcy croaked as she opened the driver-side door.

“Did you leave your lights on?”

“I don’t think so…”

Sure, she couldn’t remember turning them off when she was in her early morning haze, but she’d parked, locked the doors, and the lights… No, sure was sure she’d turned them off. Unless the battery had just forfeited in the deep freeze.

It _had_ been on the fritz for the past couple of weeks, but it was a bit of a clunker (the best she could afford on a Ph.D. contract, and she didn’t have the money to look into it beyond getting a jump.

“Fuck.” Darcy sighed, head swimming as she tried not to think about how much this would cost her. “Well, I guess I’m walking.”

She slammed her driver’s side door shut a little too hard, jamming the lock button on her keyring with her finger. All she could hear was the click of her boots against the sidewalk; there wasn’t a soul out on the streets— not that there were many to spare in a town this small.

And it _was_ only about a twenty-minute walk from here, so Darcy was more than prepared to do it. They could always swing by later for a tow and her luggage.

And then there was a second pair of footsteps stomping behind her, echoing.

Clint yelled after her, “Darcy, it’s freezing! I can give you a ride—”

“No! No,” Darcy said a little too quickly, turning to look at him for only a second before she whipped herself back in the right direction. “It’s not far and could use the walk to wake up.”

And she expected him to leave it at that, leave her to be awkward all on her own. She was good at that. Instead, Darcy heard those echoing steps turning into a gallop, stopping just in front of her with Clint looking down from his towering six feet.

She’d forgotten how tall he was, how she always used to have to crane her neck up to look him in those baby blues.

It almost felt familiar.

“Alright, well, you’re definitely not dressed for this weather,” Clint said softly, reaching up to pull his grey knit beanie off his head. “At least take this.”

He didn’t exactly ask as he slipped the hat over her head, smoothly tucking her hair away from her face in the process. Darcy seemed to hold her breath, afraid he would touch her and set something off again, the resounding spark still tingling up her arm all this time later.

“Thanks,” she breathed into little white, icy puffs of air.

Clint licked his lips, smile fading as he cleared his throat, eyes lingering on hers a little too long, like he was admiring her in his hat.

“Listen, I should probably go with you,” he said, sounding less like an offer and more like a threat.

Darcy raised an eyebrow, “Oh, _should_ you?”

“I just found you asleep in a booth. How do I know you won’t end up in a ditch somewhere?” Clint reasoned with a lilt, hands somehow still on her shoulders, she realized. “It’s the friendly thing to do.”

“Friendly, huh?” Darcy’s face flamed as he took his hands off her jacket, shoving them back into his pockets as they fell in step.

Even if she hadn’t explicitly given permission.

By the time they arrived on her parents’ front porch, Clint was singing some obnoxious song from the early 2000s, just trying to get any sort of reaction from her. Anything to lighten the mood. He always did know how to do that.

“Darcy Lewis, where have you been? And _where_ is your car?”

Mom’s voice was just how she remembered it from all those phone calls. Stern and nasal, and all the love scribbled into the margins of her tone, as if implied no matter what she said.

“And is that Clint?”

“Hi, Mrs. Lewis. I found this one _loitering_ in my establishment,” Clint called out ahead.

Darcy was a little more to the point, “And then my battery died.”

“And then we found out her car’s battery died, yes.”

Letting out somewhat of a disappointed noise, she scrambled back into the house, calling out over her shoulder, “I’ll call Bill Owens. He can bring the car ’round this way, and we can get your luggage before he hauls it off.

Leave it to Lewis women to think of every possible angle.

Darcy had never been more grateful.

“So, uh,” she turned back to Clint, hands bunched into fists in her pockets. “Thanks for the escort?”

But Carol’s voice called out after them, making his head turn towards the front door, “Clint! Why don’t you come in and stay for breakfast? We have more than enough, and we were going to call you over for dinner tonight anyway. Might as well make a day of it?”

Clint’s eyes snapped to Darcy’s, staring straight at her as a smile crossed his face.

“If you insist,” he replied a little too smugly.

But Darcy wasn’t actually mad, knowing her mom was just too polite to say she knew he didn’t have anywhere else to be. Even Natasha would have her own family dinner today when the diner closed up, with her parents across town, and something told Darcy that Clint feeling like an outsider in their small community hadn’t changed much in the years she’d been gone.

Her mom had mentioned it off-hand in some of their conversations, how she’d invite Clint over in Darcy’s place for Sunday lunches sometimes, stopping by the diner a little more than she usually would have, just to say hello. She’d always figured it was because her parents were lonely, sick of being empty nesters and not having anyone to spoil.

Darcy had never stopped her busy life to ask _why_.

Her gut twisted with guilt as the pieces clicked together.

Henry Lewis had arrived with some fresh fruit in hand a few minutes later, wrapping his daughter into a hug and kissing the top of her head. Clint turned so he didn’t see the sappy tears Darcy sniffed back in the next breath, feeling a little like he was intruding on a moment.

Breakfast was quiet, beyond her parents trying to pry details of her work life out of her. It was exhausting, dodging the line of fire and avoiding answering the question of when she’d have to leave to head back to the big city. Darcy could feel her phone vibrating in her pocket every few minutes with a new email, and she dreaded having to open them all.

But worst of all was Clint’s eyes watching her from across the table like he was trying to decode every wince and deflection.

Her mom had just started to clear the table when she shooed them away, telling Clint he was welcome to hang around until dinner. Darcy didn’t have the heart to offer a snide remark or quip, too tired from avoiding her own responsibilities to go poking around in someone else’s.

“You’re room’s just as I left it! Go see,” Carol’s voice wafted through the house, the shuffling of papers cutting above it as she searched for the Owen’s Towing number, no doubt.

Darcy didn’t think much of it when she snaked up the stairs, Clint trailing behind her, providing colour commentary on the gems hung and littering the faded papered walls of the foyer.

“1999 looked good on you. ”

The corners of her lips crept up into a smile, huffing a laugh behind her hand. Clint didn’t need the encouragement. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to break the awkward silence or just being himself, but either way, Clint always knew what to say to bring her out of a funk.

“The perm or the glasses?” Darcy shot back to his snigger.

Flicking on the light, it was like she’d stepped into a time machine. Everything in the room seemed so much older, so much more juvenile than it did when she was here last. While it had only been a few years of meeting at restaurants in the city or stopping by for dinner or lunch, she didn’t expect coming and _staying_ back home to feel so different.

So distant, somehow still with that warm glow of nostalgia.

Spotting it as her eyes danced across the room, Darcy quickly slammed down the framed photo on her bedside table. No one deserved to see her in a mouthful of braces and awful powder pink taffeta. 

Yep, she totally didn’t slip it into her sock drawer because of the person standing next to her in the photo. The one with the same chiselled jawline and dimpled smile. That blonde hair spiked to late-90’s standards, complete with frosted tips.

“Whatcha got there?”

Clint’s voice nearly made Darcy jump out of her skin, her sock drawer clattering shut as she sputtered out a, “Nothing!” 

He chuckled, “What, you don’t want to remember prom?”

Turning on her heel to face him, Darcy’s mouth hung open.

“You’ve been _in_ here since I’ve been gone?”

Clint looked a little guilty now, “Your mom wanted to show me! Blame Carol.”

Darcy huffed, sitting herself down on her double bed and leaning back onto the covers to stare at the ceiling.

“Is this weird?”

She flopped on her side to look at him, sideways in her vision as she lay on the duvet, “Like you and me or just being here in general?”

“Your answer would imply both.” Scratching the back of his neck a little more nervously than she would have expected, Clint added, “I can go if this is weird. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.”

Darcy bolted up, making to head towards the door as she shook her head, “No. No, stay. You walked with me for twenty minutes in the freezing cold. You deserve a free meal or two, I guess.”

The soft smile on his face was worth getting up for, and Darcy tracked him as he sat down on the bed beside her until they were both lying across the bed. They’d spent a lot of nights like this as teenagers, sometimes smoking, sometimes stone-cold sober. Other times not. But there were a lot of admissions, confessions as they were inches away. Sometimes shoulders touching.

Other times, like this, not.

“It _is_ weird, you know,” she admitted suddenly, surprising even herself. “I um, didn’t expect it to be like this.”

“Like what?” Clint asked, the words rumbling in his chest.

“Like everything here just continued on without me. Just because I’m off doing things and not checking in doesn’t mean everything back home stops.” 

Darcy realized she was starting to ramble, clamping her mouth shut before she could run down that angsty road she was headed towards.

“Your parents missed you a lot, but they understand,” Clint replied, softer now. “They know PhDs don’t get conferred all by themselves.”

“Conferred? That’s a five-dollar word, Clint. I’m impressed.”

He snorted, shoving his shoulder into hers with a grumbled, “I’ll have you know I have a vast vocabulary.”

“Of curse words,” Darcy shot back. “And movie quotes.”

With a huff of a laugh, he conceded, “Touché.”

It was several hours and way too many high school yearbooks later when Carol called them both down, finalizing the last of the dinner spread. Her mom had two pastry boxes in her hand, looking a little torn.

“Darcy, do you like pecan? You know, I couldn’t quite remember when I was at the store, it’d been so long,” Carol lamented, the generous helping of guilt laced in her words.

Typically, she would have rolled her eyes by now, huffing something about laying it on thick, but Clint stepped in before Darcy could get the words out.

“Darcy hates pecan,” Clint said off-hand like he’d said it a million times before. “She prefers pumpkin pie.”

The thumping against her ribs was getting to be the only thing she could hear as she stared at them both, feeling a bit like she’d walked into the past. Rubbing her face with her hands, she shook her head, “I can have pecan, mom. It’s Clint’s favourite.”

* * *

Bellies full and faces hurting from smiling and laughing to the ruckus they concocted over dinner, Clint and Darcy sat in the front room with a piece of pie in each of their laps. Carol and Henry had gone to bed an hour ago, leaving the pair on their own in the house that seemed to creak with each gust of wind outside.

The mood was a little more sullen now, on the sadder side of nostalgia.

“Hey, how’s the diner doing, anyway? I feel like a bad friend that I don’t know that,”

“Not great,” he admitted. “Don’t know if we’ll last that far into the new year.”

“What?”

Clint shifted in his seat, pulling the blanket tighter around himself as he avoided her eyes.

“Got offered to sell the land to some developers, and honestly? I might just take them up on it,” he explained, sounding sadder than she’d probably ever heard him. “This whole town’s probably going to get bought up by the next one over. Used for manufacturing, maybe an Amazon plant or something.”

Darcy was almost sad about that, too, the thought that somehow this town would fade into a bad dream. That he would be uprooted and without the business his family had been running for decades. It was just him, after all, the only Barton left standing in this small town.

“What are you going to do with yourself then, if that happens?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Clint admitted, sipping at the hot cocoa they’d made before settling outside— it was finally cool enough to drink. “Sometimes I wish I did what you did.”

“Run away from this small town as soon as I could?” Darcy chuckled humourlessly, knowing that her experience hadn’t exactly been the smartest move either. “I’ve been a student since I was four years old, Clint. That’s not exactly ‘ _making it_ ,’ never mind adulting.”

“Adulting is bullshit.” Scooping up his last forkful of pie, Clint looked out into the dark night, “Y’know, I always thought there was some big plan for me. That one day, something would fall out of the sky and show me what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life.”

Darcy set her plate down on the coffee table, bringing her knees to her chest as she looked over at him.

“And what do you think now?”

His fingers were playing with a loose thread on her sleeve, eyes locked there instead of on hers.

“ _Now_ I know it’s just what you make of it— _life_ , I mean. You get dealt some cards, and you have to either bluff your way into the next hand or settle.”

“And what if you’re no good at bluffing but don’t want to settle?” Darcy asked quietly. “Or just terrible at cards in general?”

Clint smiled, dimples carving his cheeks as he finally met her eyes.

“Then you become the dealer.”

Darcy wasn’t drunk enough to carry that particular thread of logic, leaning into his touch as she closed her eyes and tried to think it through. Somehow her face was only inches away from his now, eyes darting between his blue eyes glowing in the dim light and his lips.

Back and forth until she was convinced that it was just the alcohol working through her and not some sign from the universe that this was her payback for leaving him behind. This weird longing settling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t quite place.

It couldn’t be Clint. He was a jerk— _her_ jerk, but a jerk nonetheless.

She could feel his breath on her face, those blues looking back at her. Challenging her, almost, before a sharp intake of breath and a sigh escaped his lips.

“I should go,” Clint said, abruptly bounding off the couch and avoiding her eyes as he headed towards the foyer. He stopped in the doorway for a second, looking over his shoulder, “See you on New Year’s Eve?”

She nodded, trying to stop herself from gnawing on her lower lip.

“See you then.”

* * *

It was the next morning when Darcy noticed it, the knit hat sitting on the chair in her bedroom. Clint’s hat. And just as quickly as that thought set in, the memory of last night and those confusing feelings on repeat in her head, so too did the twisting in her stomach and the ideas she couldn’t keep quiet much longer.

Pair that with the dozens of emails she was avoiding and Darcy was closer to a full-blown meltdown than she had been in weeks.

“Did you know that Clint might sell the diner?”

Breakfast the next morning wasn’t exactly the quiet, familial affair it usually was. There was no Darcy bounding down the stairs towards the Christmas tree in some holiday onesie. There was no early morning visit from Clint, presents in hand as her mom offered him a cup of warm eggnog.

Just Darcy with a fresh hangover headache and a whole lot of questions and confusing feelings that had kept her up all night.

Which, frankly, wasn’t very (exclusively) Christmassy at all.

“He’d mentioned he was thinking about it,” her mother offered vaguely, gaze slipping to Darcy’s father Henry as he scrambled some eggs around the pan and avoided the conversation.

“And you didn’t tell me that because?”

“Well, we didn’t want to worry you, being out of town and all,” Henry finally offered, spooning some eggs onto a plate. “And it’s not a done deal.”

“Sure sounds like it’s a done deal,” Darcy grumbled, biting into a piece of toast.

Carol sighed, sipping at her coffee, “Well, maybe it’s for the best.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Darcy said off-hand, but she didn’t mean it.

That diner was the last thing he had of his family. The thought of him selling it to some investor just didn’t sit right with her. And then, there was that complicating factor, those feelings and the warmth that settled in her stomach when she looked at him.

“You know, we always assumed you two would end up together after high school.”

“Henry!” Carol swatted his arm, shooting him a glare as he shrugged.

“What? It’s true.”

Darcy just took another sip of her coffee, trying to drown out the jackhammer in her skull as she grumbled, “What are you two talking about? Clint and I were always friends.”

“Very good friends,” Henry added, wiggling his eyebrows. “They say you have to be friends first in a successful relationship, you know.”

Darcy snorted, “OK, Dr. Phil.”

But as much as she tried to shrug it off, her dad’s words burrowed themselves into those thoughts she’d been having. The wondering of repressed sentiments and the general feeling that there was something she missed, something everyone else could see that she couldn’t for some reason.

And nothing really pissed her off as much as not being in control, especially of herself.

“Any plans for today?” Henry asked, probably looking for any excuse to change the subject.

Darcy, who hadn’t given it much thought beyond needing to clear her head, downed the rest of her coffee and set her dish and cutlery in the sink. 

“I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

Hugging her mom and dad goodbye, Darcy grabbed her jacket, Clint’s hat and her phone before flying out the door. 

She needed a second opinion.

* * *

9 AM wasn’t exactly peak time at the diner for a weekday. Not with the shops open early for shoppers and New Year’s party planners to stock up between the holidays. All these things were working in her favour as Darcy tried to work up the courage to ask the questions her stomach had been gurgling at her whole visit.

As she breezed through the front door and beelined for Natasha, folding napkins in a back booth away from the window, somehow they skipped all the usual pleasantries.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Brows knitted together, Natasha looked at her, “About what?”

“The diner! Clint told me last night,” Darcy all but groaned, sliding herself into a nearby booth like her legs had given out on her. A beat of silence and a little brain processing later, something clicked about her friend’s guilty expression. “Wait, is there something else?”

“There was something I never told you that I probably should have,” Natasha said with a gulp, sliding into the seat across from her. 

“About Clint?”

Natasha nodded, “I didn’t know if it was the right time, or if there _was_ a right time. Darcy, we’d didn’t even know if you’d come back after—”

“Just hit me with it, already.” 

Darcy was done beating around the bush. Already buried under a mountain of guilt she definitely deserved, she took a deep breath and tried to tell herself a little more wouldn’t hurt.

At least then she’d (hopefully) be done with all the secrets.

“He got that job he wanted, when we graduated high school. That photographer gig at the paper?” Darcy was halfway through a gasp and the inevitable question of ‘why?’ when Natasha continued, “He turned it down because he being pressured by Barney to take over the diner, and he thought you were going to rule the world, Darcy.”

There was a moment when Darcy wondered if her heart was still working, the beat skipping its usual rhythm while sitting in her throat as Natasha reached over to squeeze her hand.

“He didn’t want you to worry about him, and he sure as hell didn’t want to hold you back.”

And there was that head rush, making her eyes swim and pulse thud in her ears. That was the feeling of the ball dropping, of every half-baked worry about leaving Clint behind suddenly having very real legs. She had thought it was what he wanted, to stay, to be with his brother.

But was he really just trying to save her from herself? From thinking she’d feel obligated to stay?

“You asked me something once,” Darcy started, the realization sounding in her voice, somehow breathless now, as she began to form the words. “You asked me if I was running _to_ something or away from something. I didn’t know what you meant until now.”

“Until now? Really?” Natasha chided, leaning back in her seat with a breathy laugh. “Darcy Lewis, you are a stubborn one. Headstrong and blind as blind can be.”

Darcy sagged, cradling her face in her hands with her elbows propped up on the table as she groaned, “Don’t rub it in!”

Natasha patted her arm, offering a sympathetic look but not taking back her words. Not that she should; she was right, and Darcy… Well, Darcy had been so oblivious to what had been right in front of her the whole time and ran off looking for something she already had.

All because of stupid Clint Barton and his absurd, misplaced concern.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “I played right into his fucking martyr hands.”

Darcy was mid-existential crisis as she spiralled, thinking and picking apart every interaction she’d had with Clint in those last few months. Wondering if there was some sort of clue, something she’d missed. If she could see where they changed.

But she’d ruined it now. There was no way, after all that. After she walked away from him and here. There was no way he’d have those same feelings now.

There was no way he could look at her the same.

“Hey? Darcy, look at me,” Natasha’s voice was firm now, a tone she hadn’t heard since she tried to drop out of high school at seventeen. Her hands were on either side of Darcy’s face as she stared across from her in the booth. “You did what you needed to do for yourself, and that’s not wrong. If you didn’t have time for love, that’s OK. But now, when you do, and you know… It’s not too late.”

“It’s not too late,” Darcy breathed.

And those stupid four words became her mantra as she jumped to her feet and let them carry her past the jingle of the overhead bell and out the door, Natasha looking on with a proud look she wouldn’t see.

Darcy walked straight to Clint’s house, not willing to wait another moment. Part of it might have been not wanting to lose the steam she’d had now, afraid she’d talk herself out of it if she put it off. The other, selfish part hoped maybe, just maybe he’d reciprocate.

Maybe coming home again, having her car break down, and Clint losing the diner wouldn’t just be for nothing.

Maybe something good could come out of it.

But Darcy was suddenly in a losing battle, in the staring contest she was having with Clint’s front door. Her hand was just hovering about it, calling on any sort of inner strength—

And then there were three raps before she’d even realized it.

Clint’s blue eyes peering through the glass pane, frozen there for a moment.

“Darcy?” he asked, confused and prying.

But Darcy just stared back at him, floundering as she couldn’t find the words, settling on the only apparent reason she had to be here, hanging limply in her hand. “I, uh… You forgot your hat?”

And maybe it would have been more convincing if her hand wasn’t shaking, or she didn’t stumble over her own words, but it was all she had at that moment as she stared up at him. Clint’s brow furrowed, tone turning worried as he inspected her, unconvinced that was really what was going on. 

“Is everything OK? Here, come inside.”

Wrapping an arm around her, Clint ushered her in, weaving through the hall to the living room and guiding her towards the couch. And something about the warmth of him engulfing her, protecting her, felt different from all those other times.

“I’m sorry, I— I don’t know what happened there,” Darcy sighed, fingertips drawn to her mouth as she started to fret.

Was this doubt stewing inside of her already? Was she going to talk herself out of this again?

She tried to work herself up, to build up to the truth, but her mind was content to take her in every direction she’d ever considered the past sixteen years in ten seconds flat.

“You can lie to everyone else, but you can’t fool me, Darcy. I’ve known you the longest, out of everyone in this stupid town.”

Darcy’s eyes snapped up to his, searching for that little flicker of knowing in his expression. Did he already see it? Did he feel it change too?

Darcy shifted in her seat with a sigh, fidgeting with her hands in her lap as Clint watched on.

“You’re right. You know me better than anyone else too,” Darcy murmured, waiting for the inevitable ‘I told you so.’ But it didn’t come, eyebrow cocked as he waited for her to tell him on her own time. “Even if you’re too polite to rub it in. Well, bravo. My life’s a charade and crumbling in front of us. I fucked up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My job isn’t glamorous, I’m not living my best life. I’m not the all-star scientist you told me I’d be, I’m just a lousy, glorified intern,” Darcy choked out, her stomach in knots as she realized he’d given up his chance for her to better herself— for her to have all the opportunities, and she couldn’t even manage that. “My life’s a fucking charade, and I’m no better than any person living here. Definitely no better off than you.”

“Your life’s not a charade, Darcy. You just hit a rough patch,” Clint planted his hand on her knee, gingerly patting it as she sniffled. “You’re tougher than that, Darce. You’ll get past it, figure out the next step.”

But all Darcy could manage was a humourless laugh, self-pity seeping through the tears that slipped down her cheeks. If only he _knew_ that he’d given it up, given his dream up for hers.

And she had nothing to show for it.

“You know what’s sad? I spent so long trying to live up to what I thought I should be— the version of success I thought I could manage. What I _thought_ I could do,” Darcy stopped, looking up at those bright blue eyes looking a little sad now. “Natasha told me you gave up that job in New York for Barney… and for me… and I just…”

Darcy was just inches away from Clint, the air seemingly disappearing from between them. But there was this wall of hesitation, of concern, coming off of him that she couldn’t ignore.

“I just— I don’t know what to say, Darcy,” Clint admitted as he pulled back, wrenching his hand from her knee. “You fly back into town, bulldoze your way through my life, and somehow I’m not even mad. It was like you never left, and I’m just wondering if things are going to be different than they were when you left last time. But I don’t regret any of it, not for a moment.”

The words were a sobering reminder to Darcy, making her sit up a little straighter. Her face had that familiar crease across her forehead, gnawing on her lip as she tried to rustle up the words to even come close to explaining herself. 

“I loved you, Darcy. And you _left_ ,” Clint started, and she realized this was the rawest she’d ever seen him, stripped bare with no pretences. “And I don’t know if you feel the same way, and I know we were never really together, not a couple or anything, but I did— I _do_ love you.”

The thumping against her ribs made it hard to concentrate, and it seemed to get louder with every second of silence between them.

“And I’m sorry I never told you that.”

The fucking martyr. She could have laughed if she wasn’t halfway through a sob, shaking her head as she tried to stop him from taking on anymore blame. That wasn’t what she came here for.

And Darcy still had a lot to say.

“No, you shouldn’t be apologizing. I should. I’m sorry. I was a kid. I didn’t know _anything_ , Clint. I didn’t even see what you were doing or how you were struggling. I didn’t even think to check in after I left,” Darcy huffed a breath, trying to steady her voice. “I thought that love was supposed to feel different than the way we did like it was just, so _easy_ being best friends with you. But then I grew up.”

He could see her conviction shining through the streaks of half-dry tears on her cheeks. Threading his fingers through hers, he managed to get a soft smile out of her.

“You, here, reminded me that there’s so much more than titles and Manhattan and living solely to work,” Darcy breathed. “And I realized that I never felt that way about anyone else again. It was love, Clint. I’m sorry I didn’t see it then. It _is_ love.”

Clint watched her through his eyelashes like he was still waiting for her to take it back. But Darcy didn’t, and she wouldn’t, holding her breath as she waited for him to say something.

“We were both young and stupid,” Clint groused, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, sending a flutter through her chest.

“Now we’re just stupid,” Darcy chuckled, latching onto the lapels of Clint’s plaid shirt and looking up at him.

“If this is stupid, then I don’t want to be smart,” he breathed before he dipped down and caught her lips, fingers tracing the lines of her face as she sunk into the kiss. Darcy tugged on his collar until she was caged underneath him, until they fit like puzzle pieces on the couch, chasing each other’s mouths like they were back in high school, stealing moments.

And maybe, to some, the kiss and the breathlessness that followed would be the crescendo of the trip, but it was the after that left Darcy speechless. 

It was in that silent moment after, when they sat side by side on his couch, bundled in a blanket Clint had thrown over them when they realized they were too comfortable to move. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder, lips planted in her hair as she nestled into his side.

Without a second thought, she scrolled past her inbox and typed out a quick email to Jane, wishing her a good holiday and that she’d see her, to finish the rest of her contract, in the _new year_. 

Setting her phone to silent, she leaned her head on Clint’s shoulder, relishing in the warmth of them together. 

“You stayin’?”

Half of her wanted to say _with a kiss like that, how couldn’t she_? But the other half was happy to keep him on his toes.

“Only if you do one thing for me.”

She could feel him smile against the top of her head, humming like he was considering his options. “Anything.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the word, finding it hard not to mirror his smile after her whirlwind of a day.

“Be my new year’s kiss.”

Clint brushed a strand of hair out of her face, thumb lingering on her cheek as he murmured, “I’ll gladly be more than that for you, darlin’. Whatever you want.”

Because whatever the new year would bring, they would figure it out together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! All comments, kudos and bookmarks are loved and cherished.


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